Royal deal poker

ABSTRACT

A card game and method for playing the card game are provided for a plurality of players. The card game is a variety of poker and utilizes only Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10 cards, and two Joker cards from two standard 52-card decks. Because deuces through nines have been eliminated, the present invention allows a much higher frequency of royal flushes over conventional poker games. In the present invention, players make a bet, then cards are distributed. The players are allowed to modify their bet or fold. Additional cards are then distributed. Players must beat the dealer&#39;s hand in order to win the game. Payouts are determined by ranks of the players&#39; hands. The card game may be played on a game table or on a computer implemented device.

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/004,478, filed May 29, 2014.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to gambling card games such aspoker. More specifically, the present invention is a poker gameutilizing a deck comprising eight Ace cards, eight King cards, eightQueen cards, eight Jack cards, and eight 10 cards from two standard52-card decks, otherwise known as French decks. Two Joker cards areincluded in the deck for a total of 42 cards in the deck, although amaximum of 40 cards of the shuffled deck are dealt during each sessionof play.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Poker is by far one of the most popular gambling card games due to thecombination of skill and chance that is required for success. Poker hasa number of different variants with Texas hold 'em in particular havingdeveloped a large professional scene. The object of poker for eachplayer is to assemble the strongest possible hand utilizing individuallydealt cards as well as cards in the “community” that are shared and maybe used by all players. Forced bets or “blinds” are generally requiredin order to be dealt a hand and to provide an initial stake in play. Theposition of the blinds as well as position of the (house or nominal)dealer rotates with the progression of play from hand to hand. Aftereach player has been dealt a hand, one or more betting rounds take placein which players are able to place wagers into a pot. Although the rulesdiffer across variants of poker, cards in hands are generally discardedand replaced or supplemented with additional cards from the deck betweenbetting rounds. Wagering is largely centered on bluffing in which aplayer attempts to lure other players into calling his or her bets orfolding their hands. After the conclusion of all betting rounds, playersremaining in play are required to display their hands in order todetermine the player with the highest ranking hand. While there are manyvariations of poker, the same hand ranking system is generally usedacross the various different types of poker. One notable disadvantage ofconventional poker games is very low rates of royal flushes.

The present invention is a poker game utilizing only the Ace, King,Queen, Jack, and 10 cards from two standard 52-card decks along with twoJoker cards. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, thepoker game utilizes a 42-card deck comprising eight Ace cards, eightKing cards, eight Queen cards, eight Jack cards, eight 10 cards, and twoJoker cards. The two Joker cards serve as bugs and may be utilized in anattempt to attain the highest possible five card hand. Although the deckcomprises 42 cards, only the top 40 cards of the shuffled deck areutilized for play. The poker game may be played by up to seven playersand one dealer. Prior to receiving a hand, each player is required topost a minimum ante bet and may post an optional minimum bonus side bet.The dealer then deals each participating player an initial three cardhand. Players are then permitted to view their initial three card handsand hold their bets, double their antes, or fold their hands. The finaltwo cards are then dealt to each player. Based on mathematical analysis,it is advised never to fold. After the players receive their cards, theyare required to reveal their hands for evaluation. Regardless of handranking outcome, a player will receive ante win if the players handoutranks the dealer's hand. Players must beat the dealer's hand in orderto win the main game and payouts are determined by the ranks of theplayers' hands. If a player has placed a bonus side bet and has achieveda bonus hand, he or she receives a bonus payout regardless of if thehand beats the dealer's hand.

Players are able to play up to a maximum of two total hands per game. Aplayer who wishes to play more than one hand is required to double hisor her minimum bet. The player may only play an additional hand that isdealt to an unoccupied player position to his or her immediate left orright.

The present invention provides the advantage of providing much higherrates of royal flushes than ordinary games of poker by eliminatingdeuces through nines from the playing deck.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts a playing table for the poker game.

FIG. 2 is a table of main game hand rankings and payouts.

FIG. 3 is a table of bonus side bet hand rankings and payouts.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of game process.

FIG. 5 is an image of a rack card for the poker game.

DETAIL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE INVENTION

All illustrations of the drawings are for the purpose of describingselected versions of the present invention and are not intended to limitthe scope of the present invention.

The present invention is a poker game utilizing only the Ace, King,Queen, Jack, and 10 cards from two standard 52-card decks. In thepreferred embodiment of the present invention, the deck utilized in thepoker game comprises eight Ace cards, eight King cards, eight Queencards, eight Jack cards, eight 10 cards, and two Joker cards. While thedeck of the poker game comprises 42 total cards, only the top 40 cardsof the shuffled deck are dealt during a maximum single round of playwith the bottom two cards unused. As such, the poker game of the presentinvention is playable by up to seven players and one dealer with eachplayer dealt a five card hand. The two Joker cards serve as bugs, usedas aces, straights and flushes may be utilized in order to attain thehighest possible five card hand. An example table for the poker game isshown in FIG. 1.

In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, each player isrequired to post a minimum ante bet and if desired, an optional minimumbonus side bet. After the initial bets have been placed, the playerseated at the dealer position deals each player three cards from theshuffled deck of the poker game. The players are permitted to view theirinitial three card hands. After viewing the initial three card hands,the players are able to hold their bets, double their antes, or foldtheir hands. After each player has decided on his or her next play, thedealer deals two additional cards to each player. After all cards havebeen dealt and un-played cards have been discarded, all players arerequired to reveal their final five card hands for evaluation.

In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, player hands donot compete with the hands of other players. Players are required toattain a higher hand than that of the dealer in order to win the maingame. Payouts for players with higher hands than that of the dealer aredetermined based on the ranks of the players' hands. A table of handrankings and payouts is shown in FIG. 1. As can be seen, possible handsinclude traditional poker hands such as straight, full house, and fourof a kind. Player hand rankings differ based on the presence of the bugJokers that may be utilized to attain the hands. In the preferredembodiment of the present invention, player hands that have beenattained utilizing bug Jokers are considered a push with hands that havebeen “naturally” attained without the use of the bug Jokers. However,the presence of bug Jokers additionally allows for players to attainvarious non-traditional hands such as five aces.

Payouts are additionally awarded to players who placed a bonus side betat the onset of play. In order to receive a bonus side bet payout, aplayer is required to have attained a hand for which bonus side bets areawarded. These payouts are awarded independent of the main game and areawarded regardless of whether or not the player has attained a higherhand than that of the dealer. A table of hand rankings and bonus sidebet payouts is shown in FIG. 2.

In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, each player ispermitted to play up to a maximum of two total hands per round of playin the event of vacant seating at a table of play. However, in order toplay a second hand, a player is required to double his or her initialminimum bet. Additionally, the player is limited to playing anadditional hand that is dealt to an unoccupied player position to his orher immediate left or right. Payouts, if any, may be awarded for each ofthe two player hands following the conclusion of play.

The flow diagram of FIG. 4 summarizes the general process of gameplay ofthe present invention as has been previously described.

FIG. 5 is an image of a rack card designed to educate players of therules of the game. The rack card contains a logo, a brief description ofthe rules, a recommended basic strategy, place bet paytable, a briefdescription of bonus envy rules, and a bonus envy playtable. The rackcard can be placed at the playing table so that players can easilyreference it.

The poker game of the present invention may incorporate progressivejackpots into play. The implementation of progressive jackpots is at thesole discretion of the house. A progressive jackpot may grow in valuebased on set criteria. For example, if a royal flush has not beenattained for a certain period of time, the payout for a royal flush maysubstantially increase following the declaration of a progressivejackpot for attaining a royal flush. This progressive jackpot may belimited to the house's maximum jackpot payout limit.

Because of the widespread use of electronic and virtual pokerenvironments, the poker game of the present invention is not limited toa physical playing environment. Alternative embodiments of the presentinvention may comprise a virtual playing environment implemented on aplatform such as, but not limited to, a video poker application or anonline poker game.

Although the present invention has been explained in relation to itspreferred embodiment, it is understood that many other possiblemodifications and variations can be made without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of playing a card game, the methodcomprising the steps of: providing eight Ace cards, eight King cards,eight Queen cards, eight Jack cards, eight 10 cards, and two Jokercards; shuffling the cards; prompting by a dealer for a plurality ofplayers to place bets; placing ante bets and optional bonus envy sidebets by the plurality of players; dealing three cards by a dealer toeach of the plurality of players face down and dealing five cards by thedealer to the dealer face down; wherein each player is enabled toidentify the three cards dealt to the player; selecting to place a playbet equal to the ante bet or fold by each of the plurality of players;dealing by the dealer an additional two cards to each of the pluralityof players who did not fold face down; upturning by the dealer the cardsdealt to the dealer; comparing values of the cards of each player with avalue of the cards of a dealer; awarding payouts for ante and play betsbased on a hand ranking system, comprising: if a first value of thecards of a given player is greater than a second value of the cards ofthe dealer, the given player is paid a payout according to a pay table;and if the first value is less than the second value, the dealer takesthe ante bet and bonus envy side bet; if the first value is equal to thesecond value, the ante bet and bonus envy side bet push; and processingby the dealer the envy bonus bets according to the pay table.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: requiring a minimum ante bet bythe players.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the ante bet is limitedto $5-$100.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the bonus envy side bet islimited to $1-$25.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: eachplayer plays one or two hands per round of play.
 6. The method of claim1, further comprising: the number of players is limited to one to seven.7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: a natural royal flush isassigned a payout of 100 times the play bet, five aces is assigned apayout of 75 times the play bet, other five of a kind is assigned apayout of 30 times the play bet, a wild royal flush is assigned a payoutof 20 times the play bet, a natural four aces is assigned a payout of 12times the play bet, wild four aces is assigned a payout of 8 times theplay bet, other four of a kind is assigned a payout of 4 times the playbet, a flush is assigned a payout of 3 times the play bet, a full houseis assigned a payout of 1 times the play bet, a straight is assigned apayout of 1 times the play bet, three of a kind is assigned a payout of1 times the play bet, a two pair results in a push, a one pair resultsin a push, and a high card results in a push.
 8. The method of claim 1,further comprising: a natural royal flush is assigned a payout of 500times the bonus envy side bet with a $75 bonus envy to participatingplayers of the bonus envy side bet, a natural five aces is assigned apayout of 500 times the bonus envy side bet with a $50 bonus envy to theparticipating players of the bonus envy side bet, wild five aces isassigned a payout of 300 times the bonus envy side bet with a $25 bonusenvy to the participating players of the bonus envy side bet, other fiveof a kind (10-K) is assigned a payout of 200 times the bonus envy sidebet, a wild royal flush is assigned a payout of 80 times the bonus envyside bet, a natural four aces is assigned a payout of 25 times the bonusenvy side bet, a wild four aces is assigned a payout of 12 times thebonus envy side bet, other four of a kind is assigned a payout of 6times the bonus envy side bet, a full house is assigned a payout of 1times the bonus envy side bet, a flush is assigned a payout of 1 timesthe bonus envy side bet, a natural straight is assigned a payout of 1times the bonus envy side bet, a wild straight results in a push, andthree of a kind results in a push.
 9. A method for playing a card game,the method comprising the steps of: executing, with a processor, aprogram stored on a non-transitory memory of a computer implementeddevice, the program directing the computer implemented device to performthe following: (a) prompting a player to input an ante bet andoptionally a bonus side bet; (b) storing the input ante bet andoptionally the bonus side bet in a memory; (c) generating a firstdistinct set of cards by the computer implemented device, the firstdistinct set of cards consisting of three randomly selected cards from avirtual deck of cards consisting of eight Ace cards, eight King cards,eight Queen cards, eight Jack cards, eight 10 cards, and two Jokercards, and storing the first distinct set of cards in the memory; (d)generating a second distinct set of cards by the computer implementeddevice, the second distinct set of cards consisting of five randomlyselected cards from the virtual deck of cards, and storing the seconddistinct set of cards in the memory; (e) displaying the first distinctset of cards on a display; (f) prompting a decision by the player toplace a play bet equal to the ante bet or fold, executing the decisionof the player with the following actions:
 1. if the player decides toplace the play bet, rewrite the stored ante bet to twice its originalvalue;
 2. if the player decides to fold, display a message indicating anend of a round and return to step (a); (g) generating a third distinctset of cards by the computer implemented device, the third distinct setof cards consisting of two randomly selected cards from the virtual deckof cards, and storing the third distinct set of cards in the memory; (h)displaying a player's hand consisting of the first and third distinctset of cards on the display; (i) displaying a dealer's hand consistingof the second distinct set of cards; (j) comparing the player's hand tothe dealer's hand; and (k) accessing a database to determine payout. 10.The method of claim 9, further comprising: requiring a minimum ante betfrom the player.
 11. The method of claim 9, wherein the ante bet islimited to $5-$100.
 12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:requiring a minimum bonus side bet from the player.
 13. The method ofclaim 9, wherein the bonus envy side bet is limited to $1-$25.
 14. Themethod of claim 9, further comprising: a natural royal flush is assigneda payout of 100 times the play bet, five aces is assigned a payout of 75times the play bet, other five of a kind is assigned a payout of 30times the play bet, a wild royal flush is assigned a payout of 20 timesthe play bet, a natural four aces is assigned a payout of 12 times theplay bet, wild four aces is assigned a payout of 8 times the play bet,other four of a kind is assigned a payout of 4 times the play bet, aflush is assigned a payout of 3 times the play bet, a full house isassigned a payout of 1 times the play bet, a straight is assigned apayout of 1 times the play bet, three of a kind is assigned a payout of1 times the play bet, a two pair results in a push, a one pair resultsin a push, and a high card results in a push.
 15. The method of claim 9,further comprising: a natural royal flush is assigned a payout of 500times the bonus envy side bet with a $75 bonus envy to participatingplayers of the bonus envy side bet, a natural five aces is assigned apayout of 500 times the bonus envy side bet with a $50 bonus envy to theparticipating players of the bonus envy side bet, wild five aces isassigned a payout of 300 times the bonus envy side bet with a $25 bonusenvy to the participating players of the bonus envy side bet, other fiveof a kind (10-K) is assigned a payout of 200 times the bonus envy sidebet, a wild royal flush is assigned a payout of 80 times the bonus envyside bet, a natural four aces is assigned a payout of 25 times the bonusenvy side bet, a wild four aces is assigned a payout of 12 times thebonus envy side bet, other four of a kind is assigned a payout of 6times the bonus envy side bet, a full house is assigned a payout of 1times the bonus envy side bet, a flush is assigned a payout of 1 timesthe bonus envy side bet, a natural straight is assigned a payout of 1times the bonus envy side bet, a wild straight results in a push, andthree of a kind results in a push.
 16. The method of claim 9, furthercomprising: steps (a)-(c), (e)-(g), and (h-k) are repeated foradditional players playing simultaneously.